With half the film taking place at a New Year’s party, this 1938 George Cuckor-directed comedy seemed an easy choice to watch on this first day of 2012. Starring Katharine Hepburn and Cary Grant (who graced screens earlier that year in the zany Bringing Up Baby), it’s a story of the rich and the poor and the expectations placed on both. Grant has met a woman (Doris Nolan) on vacation in Lake Placid, and after a 10-day romance, they plan to marry. When he comes to meet her family in New York City, he’s surprised to discover she’s filthy rich… but doesn’t so much care. She has an eccentric sister (Hepburn) and drunk brother (Lew Ayres), and together they make quite a family.
I’ve seen it referenced several places as a screwball comedy, but I don’t see it (especially compared to something like Bringing Up Baby). Adapted from a stage play, what starts as a comedy, with scene after scene of silliness, evolves into a story that is surprisingly poignant. Grant wants to make enough money to quit his job and travel the world, to be free and find himself. But his wife-to-be, and his future father in-law, expect him to take a job in the family business and amass wealth. Grant’s trying juggle his love of freedom with his love of his girl, the girl her love him with her love of her expectations, and all the while Hepburn and drunk brother Ayres are on the sidelines, trying to decipher it all. I found it a little slow in the beginning, but I wonder if that’s not because I was expecting screwball and got an understated comedy with an undercurrent of seriousness.
